Edit - this post is getting very dated and lots of Rcg policy is more permissive as of 2024. Will leave the post up as is permanently and won’t revisit the content

When the former council introduced the RCG zone (the rowhouse zone), it was a patch, or a workaround to the archaic and inflexible land use bylaw that controls redevelopment in the infill areas. Lacking the means or political will to do the work of creating a new bylaw, the RCG chapter would at least become a meaningful stopgap measure until such time (a decade or more) that the new bylaw could be crafted. While flawed, because each land use change for the tiniest lot needs a vote by the full council and mayor of the day, instead of being approved based on criteria created by the planning department, it was a quick fix to introduce a ‘built form’ that the R1 and R2 areas could not. The outcome, years later, is more like a perpetual battle of urban planning guerrilla warfare, where the side of ‘goodness’, the anti development forces, line up and do battle against the evil developers, in front of the power brokers of council. It has now degenerated such that the same tropes are dredged out each application, anti-rcg bingo can be played in advance of reading any public submission. This is all tiresome to the max to any jaded industry member. After enough applications, the votes of each on council can be predicted in advance, most of the time. For applications where the locals can come up with a critical mass of petitions, letter writers, and hearing presenting attendees, some on council can be unreliable voters as they become inclined to forget policy and are swayed by emotional argument. Situations where the applicant has zero certainty on the outcome occur. A recent Killarney vote followed the script and resulted in an 8-7 vote in favour of the applicant. Notably, Councillor Walcott showed a willingness to vote against his own constituents to support the RCG file. That was somewhat of a surprise given the volume of voters that will remember this come election time.

The solution needs to be a broad policy backed by a new bylaw. The RCG (actually rowhousing) needs to be allowed everywhere, fairly, distributed in each infill community, or nowhere. At this stage of society and its need for housing, particularly affordable ground oriented rental that isnt in sprawl areas, it seems unfair to politicize this type of development. The more politically powerful communities put up a better defence and this will create areas where the old land use patterns are frozen in time, while the ‘go zones’ become chronic construction sites, with the associated noise, mess, and hassle. The city planning department favours moving on from the rigid hierarchy of the R1, R2 style and go toward ‘something else’. This would merge the zones into a built form based regulation of housing intensity. I favour this option, but not the amount of time and energy it takes to get there. Is there another temporary stopgap measure, such as simply abandoning the R2 and RCG zones, and combining them into a new, more permissible class?